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Tuesday, February 6, 2018

In 2010, Writer Abroad and two other American writers living in Zurich stopped complaining about not having English-language writing instruction in Zurich and created it instead.

Today, the Zurich Writers Workshop is holding its 8th workshop. For better or worse, since Writer Abroad created it, a lot of other workshops have been founded both in Zurich and in Switzerland. It's been great to see such interest in English-language writing instruction in a country where English is not even one of the four official languages. It felt like a big risk back in 2010, but today it's shown there is a big heart for this kind of weekend event.

Registration just opened and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you can’t commit to the full weekend, it’s possible to just attend Pitch Perfect in Zurich, which will be held on Sunday, April 15th. Pitch Perfect in Zurich will offer live feedback on anything a writer might pitch to an editor: from query letters, freelance magazine and newspaper pitches, to personal essay pitches. To reflect reality, the participants will pitch the instructors ahead of time via email, and besides providing feedback on each submission, the panelists will discuss which submissions caught their eye in their packed inbox and why.

What's more, mid-April is a great time to visit Zurich thanks to the spring festival, Sechseläuten, where a snowman called the Böögg will be set on fire on April 16th to predict the summer weather. So enjoy a writing weekend, and then end it with a bang, the Böögg version.

Saturday, November 4, 2017

Susan Jane Gilman once
gave a TED Talk on
how anger inspires creativity. Writer Abroad agrees. In fact, many of her
pieces in the last few years (Vox,
Vice,
New
York Times) were inspired by anger. Anger fueled her writing and essays flowed. But now she's at a loss. Now she's answering the question: What happens when your anger is no longer inspiring?

Writer
Abroad has now reached a point where she's beyond being angry. In fact, she’s so upset at the direction of the
United States that she almost can’t write about it any longer. She’s been in a place
of creative anger for over three years now (since returning to the U.S.), and
for her, the anger has run its course.

The reality that
nothing good (at least politically and policy-wise) will happen for the next
few years—no matter what piece she gets published or not—has her in a writing
slump.

Now she’s numb. Now
she can hardly listen to the news. Now she’s got writer’s block. This is
probably what the current leaders of the U.S. want. And she doesn’t want to
succumb to them, but she is slowly succumbing to the endless deranged mental
state that is life in 2017 America.

She’s also trying to
be kind to herself. Trying to give herself a few months break from writing
about everything that’s wrong in order to feel creatively all right. Because the
reality is, outside of the decline of her country, her life is going fine. Take away the noise from the media, from
the outside world asking her what the heck is going on here, from the voices in her head
wondering if she made a huge mistake by moving back to this disaster waiting-to-happen when she was in a much more stable and reasonable country before–even if it wasn't her real home.

So for the next few
months, there might be some quiet going on here, at least in the creative anger
arena, as Writer Abroad focuses on some business writing and strategic work in order to
remain somewhat sane.

Because Writer Abroad knows anger is a powerful creative tool. And she wants to give
the anger room to return. And she hopes for the sake of her creativity, that it
does.

In fact, when my American daughter was born in Switzerland, which does not grant citizenship based on place of birth, I often wondered whether I would have applied for her to have American citizenship had there been another citizenship option. Emotionally, this was quite a sad thought for me, but practically, based on the way my husband and I had been treated by our own government as Americans abroad, it seemed right to spare our daughter, who might never have lived in the US, of American policies.

Many acquaintances of mine who did have citizenship options for their babies took them. One American, married to a dual German/Swiss citizen and living in Switzerland, gave only Swiss nationality to her daughter, who was born last year. “We figured we were living in Switzerland so our daughter should be Swiss. Also, I want to think long and hard about whether we give her American citizenship or not due to all the issues Americans abroad are facing now,” she says. Another American living in Australia, who is married to an Australian, chose not to give her son American citizenship for similar reasons.

But then there are still Americans who give their children American citizenship despite having other options—even without plans to return to America. An American living in Zurich and married to a German, has two daughters who are dual American and German citizens. “It just makes it easier to travel. And we come to the States to visit a lot,” she says.

In my 1,000-word article, “Not-so American Babies Abroad,” for your Expat Section, I would explore the growing trend of Americans abroad who decide not to give their children their own citizenship and why. This piece would include a short personal narrative along with interviews with American parents living abroad.

I am an American repatriate and freelance writer. My work has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, CNN Travel, and many other publications. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Friday, September 29, 2017

Writer Abroad is sometimes hired to help other writers shape an idea, edit an essay, or prepare a piece for publication.

Here's one of the first things she tells them: Pretend you're in sales. Wait, don't pretend. If you're a writer wanting to get hired to write a piece for any publication–from your local newspaper to the New York Times, you must learn to be a good salesperson.

Most big bylines start with a little letter.

Yes, if you want to place an article in a publication, you have to sell your idea. No matter what kind of writing you specialize in, you must also be competent at persuasive writing—or you’ll never get a chance to write the way you prefer to write. What follows are five steps to writing a great query (or pitch) letter.

One.

Get the address right.

Address your letter to the right editor. This is sometimes easier said than done. But it’s critical to address your letter to someone specific because it shows you’ve done your research. Never write: Dear Editor,

Two.

Do your research.

Speaking of research, you have read the publication you’re submitting an idea to, yes? This is also critically important. You don’t want to suggest a travel story to say, McSweeney’s, when they clearly don’t publish them.

Three.

Angle the piece correctly.

Angle your piece to the publication you’re pitching. Sure, you could sell a travel story about a festival in Switzerland many ways. But you must figure out: What is the right way to sell that idea for the publication you’re targeting? Read that publication (see step two) but also look at the way they title things. Then create a title for your piece that has the same tone and style. Just doing that will do wonders for getting your idea from pitch to publication.

Four.

Be brief, yet impactful.

Keep your pitch letter brief. Say 300 words maximum. If you can’t get across the idea succinctly, keep editing until your idea and prose are both clear and crisp.

Five.

Answer these two questions in your letter.

Be sure to answer the questions “why now” and “why you.” These are the two questions every editor usually cares about. Why should they publish your idea now? What is timely or new about it? And why are you the perfect one to write it? Be sure to include a short, one-paragraph bio at the end of your letter.

Finally, since nothing helps like an example pitch letter, stay tuned next week for a query letter written by yours truly, along with a link to the article that came to life because of it.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Writers usually think
about characters, stories, and content. They don’t usually
think about business entities. But when it comes to how you work, it’s
important to consider the advantages and disadvantages of various entities you
could create for your writing business.

With this in mind, Writer Abroad has
created a little cheat sheet for writers like her who are not business people. So read and consider, but then talk to an accountant or tax
lawyer about your specific situation based on your country, city, and state to
see what makes sense for you. Writer Abroad has been both a sole proprietorship
and an S-Corp, so she knows first hand that there are advantages and
disadvantages to having a writing business in either entity.

Become a CEO of your writing corporation–and still wear your slipper boots.

Sole Proprietorship

If you
write an article or do a project for someone and get paid for it, you are automatically considered a sole proprietor.

Benefits:

-It's the simplest entity: No
official incorporation paperwork required (or fees to do so!)—just start
working.

-You can deduct
any expenses related to your work—including a portion of your monthly mortgage
or rent payment if you work from home and have a designated office.

-You can
create a Solo 401k and deduct up to 18k in retirement a year.

-You can
deduct net business losses from personal income.

Downsides:

-Your
personal and business lives are intertwined legally, meaning if someone takes
you to court for something you wrote, your personal assets are also at stake.

-Self-employment
taxes (U.S.) are over 15%. That’s on top of paying the tax in your income
bracket. The first time you see your total tax bill as a sole proprietor, you
will be shocked.

-Might not
be the most tax advantageous entity if you make above a certain income (say 30k
or more).

LLC

Benefits:

-Your profits
pass through and taxes are paid personally.

-Your business
is legally separated from your personal financials.

Downsides:

-More
expensive to establish than a sole proprietorship (but worth considering for the legal protection it offers.)

S-Corporation

An
S-Corporation is a special kind of corporation where business income, as well
as many tax deductions, credits, and losses are passed through the owners,
rather than being taxed at the corporate level. You must meet specific IRS
requirements to create an S-Corp. First you file regular corporation paperwork, then you apply to be an S-Corp after that.

Benefits:

-Your
business will be legally separated from your personal finances.

-If you
make over a certain income level, you will save money on taxes because you
won’t be paying 15% in self-employment taxes like a sole proprietor does. So someone making 100k, for example,
could save around 5k in taxes. But you have to consider the costs of increased paperwork
too.

-You have
more flexibility. You can decide how much salary you get, how much retirement
you put away (in some cases, you can deduct as much as 52k a year), and you have a
lot of the benefits a regular corporation has, but on a smaller scale and without double
taxation.

-You demonstrate your seriousness about your writing both to yourself and to others with a corporation.

-You'll become both a writer and a CEO. Sounds good at parties.

-You can hire employees or contractors like editors, book designers, translators, and more.

Downsides:

-You will need
to hire a lawyer to help you incorporate. This can cost around $700.

-Yearly
filing fees of $100 or more are required to maintain entity with the state.

-You will
have a lot of increased paperwork and accounting, which means you may need to
hire an accountant to help you manage payroll (even if it’s just you on
payroll), taxes, and quarterly filings as well as things you never considered,
like state employment security paperwork, which is filed quarterly too (and can
cost around $400-500 a quarter just to insure yourself against unemployment). Try to get a CPA as they are the most qualified to do your accounting. Figure an accounting cost of about $130 a month, including a subscription to Intuit.

For further reading

Writer Abroad found the following books useful when she was determining her business entity:

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Writer
Abroad always thought it would be fun to be a children’s author. It seems like such a creative career--at least in comparison to some of the marketing writing she does on a daily basis. But the
realities of writing for children, as she learned from an author at the Chicago Lit Fest this month,
seem otherwise.

This
particular debut author/illustrator had to go through 70 revisions of her
200-word picture book once it got to the publisher—70 illustration revisions—in
addition to text revisions. She said by the end, the only part of the book that
was hers from the original version was the last page—and that she had had to
fight to keep the ending less than happy. Percentage wise, she quoted 1 percent
of the book was truly hers.

These kind of results, barely recognizing what you originally suggested, sound a lot like some of the advertising and marketing writing Writer Abroad has done for clients over the years.

There's a lot to learn at the Chicago Lit Fest, which is held every June.

And there's a reason for that: Apparently
the marketing department at this author's large publisher kept pushing for the characters
to be more like a particular Disney character, since that character was popular
the summer her book was coming out. Apparently the marketing department was in
charge of basically everything.

Now along with being a freelance writer and author, Writer Abroad works in the advertising and marketing industry. She considers it a plus
to do so because she normally enjoys it, and also because it informs her pure creative writing work. The reality is that knowing what kind of
writing sells and how to sell it matters. A lot.

But if it
comes to the point where a 200-word picture book has none of the 200 words or illustrations originally suggested by the author in it, then is writing a book for a big publisher no more
creative than writing for advertising, where often every word is at the whim of
clients?

It appears
that in some cases at least, the only way to be completely in creative control as an author is to be your own publisher. Especially when you consider beautiful and successfully independently published children's books like the Lost My Name series (which Writer Abroad's daughter loves).

That’s why
for the time being anyway, Writer Abroad is pretty happy with her balance of
writing for business and writing for the pure creativity of it. Somehow, keeping her corporate writing separate from her book writing, yet controlling both via her own writing and publishing company—is the
perfect balance of writing for industry and writing for pure creativity.

It’s
something to consider when a writer considers her alternatives. And these days,
there are a lot of them.

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Writer Abroad traveled around Switzerland for almost 9 years. Then she took 3 years to write this book. Needless to say, travel writing isn't for those who want quick results. But finally, it's here. Writer Abroad's Swiss travel book.

If you're interested in seeing the real Switzerland (or just interested in how a decade of discovery can be told in 326 pages with 69 photographs), order a copy for yourself.

The book is available by order at any bookstore or you can buy it from any online bookseller. Below are some of the places you can find the book:

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About Me

I’m an American writer who moved to Switzerland in 2006 and am now back in the US to determine if I can live anywhere else after being in a country filled with cheese, chocolate, and people who can pronounce my name. The author of Swiss Life: 30 Things I Wish I'd Known www.swisslifebook.com, and 99.9 Ways to Travel Switzerland Like a Local www.swisstravelbook.com, I have written about Switzerland for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN Travel, and many other publications.
Visit: www.chantalpanozzo.com

Copyright 2009 Chantal Panozzo. All content is sole property of the author and may not be reproduced in any form without permission. (But linking is welcome). Please contact the author for syndication or reprint inquiries.